Live music and touring are on lockdown right now and fans as well as artists are going through withdrawals. We wanted to come up with something fun to help bridge that distance between fans and artists right now. What we came up with is something called The Lockdown Lowdown and it’s a Q&A session with fun questions for artists to answer. They’re not your typical interview questions, so it gives you a peek inside of the artists themselves. We’re big music nerds here at I’m Music Magazine and we love learning things like this about the artists that we love. We’re pretty sure that you’ll get a kick out of these, so we hope you’ll take the time to read them. In this installment, we spoke with Radio Free Universe lead vocalist/guitarist George Panagopoulos and writer and producer Mark McMaster.
George Panagopoulos from Radio Free Universe
What are five albums that changed your life? (Ok, ok…….so he gave us ten)
1. Beatles – Abby Road
2. Beatles – Revolver
3- Neil Young with Crazy Horse – Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
4. Jimi Hendrix – Are You Experienced
5. Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of The Moon
6. Pink Floyd – The Wall
7. Led Zeppelin 1
8. Prince – Purple Rain
9 Michael Jackson – Off the Wall
10. The Eagles – Hotel California
Name five artists that influenced you as a musician.
The Beatles
Hendrix
Quincy Jones
Elvis
Bob Dylan
What are your five favorite live albums?
Tower of Power: Live and In Living Color
Taj Mahal: Live at the Mint
Elvis: NBC-TV Special (1968)
Johnny Cash: Folsom Prison
The Who: Live at Leeds
Life on the road; what are five of your craziest/funniest/scariest tour stories?
These mostly involve drugs. I don’t do drugs these days but what can you do? This is what happened. Here are three things I always remember for some reason.
1.Playing a show one night in a field. With my first real band, I accidentally/Intentionally mixed 3 grams of mushrooms with a gram a hash and a bag of weed about 2 hours before a show. We were on last. The show went great. I don’t remember feeling high during the show, maybe the adrenaline. Regardless we had a song called LSD (don’t ask) long story short it was the last song of the night. Suddenly we all felt really high. We played the shit out of that song. On the very last note we blew the generator all the lights in the place went off. It was amazing. When the lights came on, I saw a car turn its engine on. It was a Cadillac Eldorado; it was blasting “Low Rider”. At the moment I realized the guy driving was a cartoon cat. Within seconds I realized everybody was a cat. It lasted all night. I was a cat everyone was a cat. Needless to say, I’m now deathly allergic to cats.
2. The second band I was in became King Clancy. We all lived in a loft on Los Angeles Street in LA. A crazy cool friend of ours had a very strange thing called a cosmic beam. It was a truck axil that had at one time run him over and near ended his music career. He laid it with really long custom strands of piano wire. He rigged it up with custom made huge Seymour Duncan pickups. The rig was amplified by a 5-way system that Cerwin Vega had custom made for him. A lower row of 24-inch double loaded subs, on top of that was 18’s then 15’s 6’s then horns. To give some perspective one third of this thing took up then entire wall floor to ceiling of our 3200 sq. ft loft on the second floor of the loft we rented. It was a 1914 building in the fashion district with 22 ft ceilings. The long part of the room was about 70 ft. I just need you to get the perspective on how much PA we’re talking about. When he started playing the thing it basically cracked the foundation of a building that survived every earthquake LA had ever seen. Sonically it didn’t hurt but it felt amazing. That night I tried Ecstasy for the first time. At our loft that night we had some of the heaviest players watching. After the foundation went, we thought it best to just jam some regular stuff. Steve Ferrone (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Average White Band) jumped onto the drums and I got to jam with legends all night. I don’t play jazz keys, but that night I did. I don’t know if it was beam effect or the ecstasy, but I played so well they all told me I should have my own jazz trio. I’ve never played keys like that since.
3. Part of my time In Los Angeles was spend as the house sound tech at the mint super club. This was a small place that had a ton of local heavies come down and play an elite show every now and then. I was kind of high back then. I liked pot, a lot. I didn’t know who I was mixing and didn’t care. I had my way of doing things and everyone liked it. People came to play there because it sounded good. I had some fairly interesting run ins with big name musicians I had no idea about. Macy Gray, Jack Johnson all came to showcase there. I had no idea I was telling the President of Capitol Records his guitar tone rocked and how we were going to mix his act that night and why. Most of these people were cool. They let me do my thing. They were real pros. One night some older guy got on stage and started blasting his Marshall. I could not handle it. It was a small place. I went right up to the stage during sound check waved my arms at him and just said “nope” he stopped playing, “No way am I letting you play here that loud” it was unbearable. He looked at me and asked what he should do. He was so cool. We worked on it. He called for a smaller amp with a similar tone. Then when we dialed the sound in, he started playing a tune. It was “Kick Out The Jams. When he finished, he asked me how it sounded? I said, “dude that’s sounds exactly like MC5” (I have never heard anyone sound like that live). Everyone started laughing and in an instant, he told me his name was Wayne. I just told Wayne Kramer from MC5 to turn down and he did. That year I had unknowingly done the same thing to Rye Cooder and a few others. Everyone of them was cool about it. Everyone of them asked me to mix them on several occasions as a result. I learned a lot from that.
What are your five favorite movies?
The Hustler
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Wizard of Oz
Avengers Endgame
The Third Man
Mark McMaster from The Sanctuary Recording Studio and Jetpack Records
What are five albums that changed your life?
Rush Moving Pictures
I was aware of Rush and liked them before this album, but I was completely obsessed after. When this album was released I was 13 years old and I was blown away by the bravado of it — the trio seemed to be always going full tilt and I couldn’t get enough. Now some 39 years later, the album still stands up as a masterpiece.
Van Halen 1984
I got to see Van Halen on the 1984 tour from the nosebleeds at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto — my first big arena show. I can remember new Van Halen albums beginning with Fair Warning and I was into them, but again this one hit me at the right time and place and held me. The nine original tracks cover a lot of sonic territory for a rock band and the album stands up to repeated listening over a lifetime.
Frank Zappa Sheik Yerbouti
Part rock band, part orchestra, part comedy. For a teenage boy the ridiculous and saucy stories were irresistible and the musical brilliance undeniable.
Suzanne Vega Solitude Standing
I remember hearing “Luka” on the AM radio of my 1984 Chevette on my commutes to Mohawk College. That song stood high above everything else on that dial at the time. Her grace with such a difficult subject showed me how good pop songwriting could be. The rest of the album is every bit as masterful.
Radiohead OK Computer
I was aware of Radiohead, but not a fan until this album was released. Its sonic landscapes were mindblowing then and still are.
Name five artists that influenced you as a musician.
Neil Peart (Rush)
“The Professor” was the only drummer that mattered to me when I first started to play. I’ve branched out a lot since, but his influence is undeniable. If you listen closely, you can hear it seeping into the drumming on the Love album, especially on songs like “Love Right Now” and “She’s High Again”.
Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson, solo)
From the Yes albums of the early 70s to the King Crimson albums of the 80s and 90s, his solo albums with Alan Holdsworth and Jeff Berlin and then his Earthworks album “Dig” Bill Bruford never stopped inventing. He never stood still, he never followed. I admire his independence as much as facility with his instrument.
Terry Bozzio (Frank Zappa, Missing Persons, solo)
I got to see Bozzio play solo drums at The Opera House in Toronto. His facility with his instrument — as a player and composer is otherworldly, almost godlike.
Art Blakey (solo)
One of my routes into an appreciation of jazz was by way of this great drummer. Blakely drove his band like a great rock drummer does and I was happy to follow.
Donald Fagen (Steely Dan, solo)
I was going to go with all drummers, but I have spent some time learning keyboard parts to Dan songs. I love their rich harmony and appreciate the way they fit into the arrangements, not dominate them.
What are your five favorite live albums?
Max Webster Live Magnetic Air
Saga In Transit
These are the only two live albums I’m even vaguely familiar with and I only own one of them. I don’t think any live album can come remotely close to the experience of being at a live show and I don’t think that they’d even exist if it weren’t for suits at big labels trying to squeeze every last cent out of a successful artist. Maybe they can work in jazz and classical, but pop and rock — I don’t think so.
What are your five favorite movies?
This is Spinal Tap
This is the movie that invented the “mockumentary” form — the form Christopher Guest continued to explore in “Waiting for Guffman” and “Best in Show”. Following a heavy metal band while it swirls the drain is a fantastic premise and from getting lost backstage and failed props to exploding drummers and meddling girlfriends it doesn’t miss a note. Its hilarious and insightful moments remain hilarious and insightful on every repeated viewing. I think I’m overdue to watch it again.
Pulp Fiction
I had no idea what I was getting into when I sat down in a theatre to see this film after it had already been nominated for a bunch of Oscars. I was entranced from the opening scene to the closing standoff. I’ve watched it at least a dozen times more and it never gets old.
Fargo
This is an example of masterful filmmaking in every respect — every line, every shot, every note — all spot on. It’s also a dark story that is still able to find perfectly timed humour in its characters and their situations.
High Fidelity
I’d already read the book when I first saw this. Aside from the relocation to Chicago and one noticeably absent scene (included in the extras on the DVD), it’s very true to the original. I see myself reflected in Cusack’s character and I’m always rooting for him. In a world of overly romantic rom-coms, this movie is a much-needed dose of reality — all the fumbling, messy business of relationships in one great package.
Amelie
The French have style all their own and Paris is a beautiful backdrop for just about anything. There’s so much to love about this one — the photo machine mystery, the gaslighted grocer, the odd collection of café characters, and a beautiful woman trying to figure it all out. This is another that I’m long overdue to watch again.
